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The Long Beach Water Department will receive more than $3 million in federal stimulus funding for its water desalination project, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced Wednesday. Funding will go toward a $20 million desalination testing program. The department hopes to complete testing of the technology, which converts sea water into potable water, as early as the end of 2010. Based on the results, water commissioners will then decide whether to seek approval to build a desalination plant somewhere in Long Beach, Alsop said. Long Beach Press Telegram_ 7/2/09 Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signs closed-door water bill, angers conservationists Angering conservationists and siding with developers, Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday signed a controversial bill that would give water management district staff working behind closed doors more power to grant lucrative water rights. In a transmittal letter, Crist said he sympathized with critics and would ask water management districts to continue putting water-rights decisions on the agendas of their monthly public meetings. Former Environmental Regulation Commission Chairman Dick Batchelor, who lobbied hard against the measure, said the decision flies in the face of Crist's inaugural pledge to make government more open and transparent. Pensacola News Journal_ 7/1/09 EPA releases list of 44 'high hazard' coal ash dumps The Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of 44 “high hazard potential” coal ash waste dumps across the country. The “high hazard” rating applied to sites in 10 states where a dam failure would most likely result in a loss of human life, the environmental agency advisory said, but did not assess the structural integrity of the dam or its likelihood of failure. The list, released late on Monday, was compiled as part of the agency’s inventory of coal ash sites after more than a billion gallons of ash broke through a dam at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant west of Knoxville last December. An engineering analysis of the failure, released last week, cited design problems like the height of the ash, among other factors. Coal ash contains toxic materials like lead, arsenic, selenium and thallium, and such sites have been known to contaminate drinking and surface water. New York Times_ 6/30/09 EPA Fact Sheet and list of 44 'high hazard' coal ash waste dumps Around the U.S. Water referee says Neb. owes Kan. $10,000
Oklahoma town puts water plant on line Bottled Water Water risks ripple through beverage industry As environmental worries cut into sales from traditionally lucrative bottled water, beverage companies such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé and SABMiller are becoming more attuned to the risks of negative consumer environmental perceptions. About a third of the world's people now live in areas of water stress, said Brooke Barton, manager of corporate accountability for Ceres, a network of environmental groups and investors seeking to address sustainability challenges. By 2025, she said it will be more like two-thirds. As they face criticism, multinational drink companies are setting water conservation targets, building community wells and more efficient factories, working with locals on sustainable farming, water harvesting and reforestation and looking for new technologies to reduce their water consumption even as they make more drinks. EurActiv.com_ 6/16/09 Business Scottsdale studies takeover of Arizona American Water Co. A controversial study of whether Scottsdale should take over Arizona American Water Co. is complete, and the City Council's subcommittee on water issues will review the document Wednesday in executive session. The $312,000 study by consultants examines the technical and financial feasibility of the city providing water to Arizona American's 2,000 Scottsdale customers. Arizona American has said it does not want Scottsdale taking its customers. Arizona American is the state's largest private water utility. Most Scottsdale residents receive city water and wastewater services. Arizona Republic_ 6/23/09 Desalination Hyflux to build two desalination plants in Libya Water treatment company Hyflux Limited said yesterday it has signed an agreement to build two water desalination plants in Libya, a deal which analysts say could be worth more than $1 billion. While details of project cost and financing are yet to be hammered out, based on the estimated $632 million cost of Hyflux's existing desalination plant now under construction in Magtaa in neighbouring Algeria, the two new plants in Libya could cost a total of $1.2 billion, said Kim Eng analyst James Koh. The agreements, signed yesterday with General Desalination Company (GDC), the commercial arm of Libya's Ministry of Utilities, will also see Hyflux taking a 49 per cent stake in the two plants which have a total design capacity of at least 900,000 cubic metres a day. GDC will own the majority share. One plant will be east of Tripoli, the country's capital city. The other will be in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city. Singapore Business Times_ 6/25/09 Marin County, California water board accepts desalination report, but not all of its findings The Marin Municipal Water District Board of Directors agreed with assertions of a new report that said conservation is important, but didn't fully embrace the notion that it would be enough to satisfy Marin's future water needs. The report, "Sustaining Our Water Future," was issued earlier this month by the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit consumer organization Food & Water Watch. The report concludes that the district doesn't need to build a desalination plant and could instead employ conservation measures, curb leaks and improve reservoir operations to meet future water needs. In February, the MMWD Board of Directors directed its staff to keep open the possibility of a controversial 5-million-gallon-a-day desalination plant as part of a package of steps to address the county's future water needs. But a final decision on desalination won't come until 2011. Marin Independent Journal_ 6/25/09 Environment New Jersey poised to relax protection for water International USAID $8.5 million grant to help bring clean drinking water to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam The $8.5 million will be used to expand a project to bring clean drinking water and improved sanitation to homes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The five-year award to the clean water program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The program is called Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Enterprise Development – or WaterSHED. It is a joint effort between UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health, the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the Kenan Institute-Asia. UNC says in a statement that its researchers will search for ways to increase the use of water filters in homes that lack clean drinking water in order to help reduce diarrhea and related diseases that kill nearly 2 million children a year. They will also investigate ways to achieve financially sustainable, scaled-up access to safe water sources. These include harvested rainwater, improved sanitation and greater practice of personal hygiene. Triangle Business Journal_ 6/29/09 Angry residents in New Delhi, India, protest power, water shortages Delhi's power and water woes continue without an end in sight, with citizens taking to the streets yet again on Saturday to protest the crippling shortages brought on by a heat wave. People blocked traffic, vandalized offices of power distribution companies and demonstrated outside the home of state Power Minister A.K. Walia. Varun Sethia, a resident of Kirti Nagar in west Delhi, said,"It is a normal routine now for the electricity to go off for 2-3 hours. None of the complaints are addressed. As far as water is concerned, it should come for 2 hours daily but now most of the times, it comes just once a day and sometimes doesn't come at all." The heat wave is expected to continue for the next couple of days across north India. The Economic Times_ 6/27/09 Major new water source discovered in Yemen Legal Issues It's now legal to catch a raindrop in Colorado For the first time since territorial days, rain will be free for the catching in Colorado, as more and more thirsty states part ways with one of the most entrenched codes of the West: Rainwater Catchment. Precipitation, every last drop or flake, was assigned ownership from the moment it fell in many Western states, making scofflaws of people who scooped rainfall from their own gutters. In some instances, the rights to that water were assigned a century or more ago. Now two new laws in Colorado will allow many people to collect rainwater legally. The laws are the latest crack in the rainwater edifice, as other states, driven by population growth, drought, or declining groundwater in their aquifers, have already opened the skies or begun actively encouraging people to collect. New York Times_6/29/09
Kansas Supreme Court affirms ruling on water rights The Kansas Supreme Court has affirmed a lower court ruling that a water district has the right to get a temporary easement to conduct groundwater test drilling on private property. The case stemmed from a dispute between a Lawrence-area farmer, and other landowners against the Public Wholesale Water Supply District No. 25. The water district said the landowners couldn’t fight its efforts because they don’t own the water the district wanted to test. The Supreme Court said Friday said that although “the landowners have standing to object to a temporary easement on their property,” they can’t object to the condemnation of water rights they don’t own. Kansas City Star_6/29/09
California Supreme Court: County has no duty to warn of contaminated water U.S. Supreme Court allows mining rock waste to be dumped in Alaska lake The Supreme Court today upheld a federal permit for a company to dump rock waste from a new Alaska gold mine into a nearby lake. By a 6-3 vote, the justices reversed a federal appeals court decision that the waste disposal permit for the Kensington gold mine 45 miles north of Juneau violated the federal Clean Water Act. Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp., is developing Kensington. The court ruling clears the way for as much as 4.5 million tons of mine tailings -- a slurry of rock waste, water and trace contaminants left after gold is extracted from the ore -- to be deposited into Lower Slate Lake in the Tongass National Forest and about three miles from the mine. Filling the lake with tailings would kill its resident fish, but the lake could be restocked with fish after the mine closed, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, which approved the controversial waste disposal permit. The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council decried the ruling, saying it will open the door for the nation's lakes and streams to be used as mine tailings "dumps." SEAC, the Sierra Club and Lynn Canal Conservation were the groups that sued the government over the waste-disposal permit. Anchorage Daily News_ 6/22/09 Missouri River Basin Missouri Sen. Kit Bond calls Army Corps' river plan 'nuts' Sen. Kit Bond has renewed Missouri concerns about federal efforts to restore an endangered fish on the Missouri River. Bond called the means to achieve the goal of improving conditions for the pallid sturgeon "nuts" and environmentally unsound. The Republican said he'll do his best to derail the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' $70 million funding request. The corps said it's reintroducing sediment, not moving soil from upland farms. The National Academy of Sciences is studying the sediment issue. AP/Columbia Missourian_ 6/22/09 Research and Technology Cassini spacecraft finds evidence for liquid water on Saturn's moon Enceladus In the hunt for potential habitats for life beyond Earth, Saturn’s moon Enceladus is looking better and better. The latest boost to the moon’s profile appears not at the moon itself, but in Saturn’s outermost ring, the E ring. Enceladus shepherds the ring, which it formed and renews by spewing ice grains into space via the plumes venting from its South Pole region. This week, scientists reported that they’ve detected the chemical equivalent of table salt and baking soda in some of the E ring’s grains. The only way those compounds could form, researchers say, is through the interaction of liquid water and rock. And the only spot in the neighborhood where those kinds of reactions could take place is Enceladus, with its rocky core, and at least early in its history, an ocean beneath its icy crust. The results appear in the current issue of the journal Nature. Christian Science Monitor_ 6/25/09 U.S. Droughts At a hastily organized summit in Fresno on the San Joaquin Valley's water crisis, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Sunday he has assigned two of his top lieutenants to work with state officials to find solutions. But after two hours of empathy from federal officials, outrage from local congressmen and pleas from struggling Valley residents, it was far from clear whether any level of government has a solution that satisfies everyone. Salazar's offer to help included assigning Interior Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes and Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Mike Connor to work with state officials on short- and long-term water supply plans. Fresno Bee_ 6/28/09 Wastewater Tampa, Florida, voters to decide on recycled drinking water The council voted Thursday to ask residents whether they want to put highly treated sewer water back into the city's drinking water supply. The question will appear on the 2010 ballot. The city of Tampa gets most of its drinking water from the Hillsborough River. Right now, the city dumps 55 million gallons of reclaimed water a day into Tampa Bay. The council's vote came at a workshop on a $340 million plan to find better uses for the water to protect the bay and reduce reliance on drinking water for things like irrigation and industry. St. Petersburg Times_ 6/23/09 Water Rates Water, sewer rates in Atlanta, Georgia rise 12.5 percent Starting July 1 — Wednesday — water and sewer bills in Atlanta are going up 12.5 percent. The City Council voted in June 2008 to raise those rates in each of the next four years to keep afloat Clean Water Atlanta, the city’s $4 billion program to overhaul its aging sewer system and improve water quality. Atlanta Journal Constitution_ 6/30/09 And Finally Iran's ancient water system registered on UNESCO World Heritage List Iran’s ancient water system of canals, tunnels and waterfalls in Shushtar was registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List during the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee underway in Seville, Spain. The waterworks comprises bridges, dams, mills, aquifers, reservoirs, tunnels, and canals, most of which were constructed in the Sassanid period especially during the reign of Shapur I (241-272 CE). Mehr News Agency_ 6/27/09
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